After 15 posts on 15 chapters of Less Clutter, Less Noise we have reached the end of this group blog project. I’ve enjoyed rereading the book and discussing it with you all. The blog posts and comments provided some insight and examples I hadn’t previously gotten from reading the book alone.

Thank You!

I want to express my gratitude to the 15 bloggers who joined me in writing posts for this series. Thanks for the time and insight you contributed. Thank you to all of you who posted comments. You made the experience much richer as well.

Big thanks to Kem Meyer! Thank you, Kem, for writing Less Clutter, Less Noise, for contributing some free books, and for helping to promote the project through your blog and twitter.

For me every learning experience, whether it be attending a conference, reading a book, or participating in a group blog project, boils down to two questions:

What did you learn?

What are you going to do with what you learned?

1) What did you learn?

My biggest take away from the project is a change in perspective about the role of the communications director. This is hard to admit, but deep down I think I viewed the job of a communications director to be primarily about getting 2 groups of people to do what I want them to do – first, to get my audience to participate in what we are doing, and second, to get the rest of the staff to conform to the communication guidelines (meet deadlines, follow style guides, etc).

My perspective now is that instead of “lording over” these two groups, a communications directors job is to serve both groups.

2) What are you going to do with what you learned?

Knowledge without action is useless. We will only see improvement if we act on what we’ve learned.

For me, I’m going to put the needs of others first and do what it takes to serve both groups of people. To do that, I have to build relationships, ask questions, understand perspectives, and learn the needs of both groups. And not just once, but continuously.

So, how about you?

What did you learn?

What are you going to do with what you learned?

What other thoughts do you have about Less Clutter, Less Noise and this project?

I don’t want to wait another minute to act on what I’ve learned, specifically to ask questions and understand your audience. Would you take a moment to complete a brief survey, so I can understand what you liked and how we can improve things for future group blog projects.

201954 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fblog.ourchurch.com%2F2011%2F02%2F16%2Fless-clutter-less-noise-it-all-boils-down-to-2-questions%2FLess+Clutter%2C+Less+Noise%3A+It+All+Boils+Down+to+2+Questions2011-02-16+12%3A15%3A18Paul+Steinbrueckhttp%3A%2F%2Fblog.ourchurch.com%2F%3Fp%3D20195 to “Less Clutter, Less Noise: It All Boils Down to 2 Questions”

I learned a lot. Sure wish I'd picked up some of this earlier in life. Oh well. The insights to the changes in communication due to our wired world were good. Helped me pull some of that into focus. But the biggest thing was the need to connect (even identify) with the desired audience. I really needed that. In my school of the prophets project I realized I have gotten off focus (focusing on potential secondary audiences) and need to get back to my primary audience. This includes in building relationships and even in the business plan, board recruiting packets, and ,,, well everything. Now I should feel bummed but instead I find it rejuvenating and exciting. What am I going to do? Well – get out there and find my audience. By the way, that is not people who claim to be prophets, but people who find themselves speaking with a more prophetic voice – whatever their situation – versus a teaching or shepherding voice. Thanks Paul for another great blog group. Certainly different than the 31DBB group but my two experiences have been great.